The problem with which this study was concerned was that of comparing biological science in general education among black institutions of higher learning in the United States in 1976 and 1973.

<p> Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) provide authentic research benefits to an entire laboratory course population. CURE experiences are proposed to enhance research skills, critical thinking, productivity, and retention in science. CURE curriculum developers face numerous obstacles, such as the logistics and time commitment involved in bringing a CURE to larger student populations. In addition, an ideal CURE topic requires affordable resources, lab techniques that can be quickly mastered, time for multiple iterations within one semester, and the opportunity to generate new data. This study identifies some of the CURE activities that lead to proposed participant outcomes. Introductory Biology I CURE lab students at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville completed research related to the process of converting storage lipids in microalgae into biodiesel. Data collected from CURE and traditional lab student participants indicate increased CURE student reports of project ownership, scientific self-efficacy, identification as a scientist, and sense of belonging to a science community. Study limitations and unanticipated benefits are discussed.</p><p>

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Science courses, as biology, chemistry and physics, constitute significant real subjects it is necessary to rely mainly on experiments and observations. In other words, the practical training is the hallmark of science. Practical training has a positive effect on increasing the attractiveness of individual objects, but in meaning of cognitive function is still debated its merits. What stand the laboratory work for the teachers, as a mediator of the teaching process? Research shows that the practical training teachers perceived positively mainly because of the perfect linking theory with practice, the lower the number of pupils and their proactive approach in teaching. Negatively seems time consuming, consisting mainly of get and preparation the material. Keywords: biology education and science courses, lab courses, school laboratory, time allocated to science practices

This thesis focuses on the use of freshwater animals in biology lessons. It especially provides detailed instructions for school experiments and observations of these animals, which can be bred in a freshwater aquarium at school. Manuals have worksheets for pupils and are anter keys. Each worksheet has got guidance for teachers, which contains specific instructions for the preparation of observation and experimentation and also gives some additional information. Individual worksheets are focused on representatives of cold water and tropical freshwater fish, shrimp and crayfish. A considerable part of the worksheets is devoted to our invertebrates, which can be caught in nature, and placed into the aquarium for a limited period, so there we can see the experiments and observations of some aquatic larvae of insects, flatworms, bugs, beetles, molluscs, annelids and arthropods. It also includes information about the various representatives used in the worksheets, such as a brief description of the animal and its demands for breeding. There are also instructions on how to obtain these animals. This thesis also contains practical manuals onwhere to place the aquarium in the classroom and how to manage and maintain it because this work is conceived as a handbook for teachers of biology, who have no...

The work presented in this thesis focuses on educational issues in first-year biology courses at university. First-year courses are important because they have the potential to influence student retention and subsequent subject selection choices, as well as learning at higher levels. Further, biology is considered to be an important enabling subject in New Zealand because of the Government's drive towards a biotechnology-based knowledge economy. Specifically, the work in this thesis explores the educational implications of the increasingly diverse academic backgrounds of students entering first-year biology courses on teaching and learning in these courses. A social constructivist view of learning is adopted, in which prior knowledge of the learners is considered to have a significant influence on their learning. The social context of learning interactions also is considered to be important. The research involved three phases: identification of prior knowledge assumed by faculty; identification of actual prior knowledge of students; and the implementation and evaluation of an intervention programme based on concept mapping. In order to investigate faculty assumptions of student prior knowledge, 35 faculty from six New Zealand universities were interviewed. Document analysis and classroom observations provided data triangulation. The findings for this phase of the research suggest that faculty were aware of the diverse prior knowledge of students, and reported a tension between teaching from scratch in order to accommodate those with very limited prior knowledge; and the risk of boring those with more extensive relevant backgrounds. A range of concepts that are not explained during teaching (i.e., concepts it is assumed students understand) were identified, including biology-specific concepts and relevant chemical and mathematical concepts. In the second phase, research findings from phase one were used to develop a prior knowledge questionnaire administered in two successive years to all students enrolled in first-year biology courses at one New Zealand university. Data analysis for this phase suggests that although students with more extensive prior biology study were more likely to have a scientifically acceptable understanding of some key concepts, this was not true of all the concepts that were investigated, including chemical and mathematical concepts. The data also point to differences between what faculty expect students to know, and what students actually know. Furthermore, few students, regardless of the extent of prior biology study, were able to demonstrate understanding of the relationships between important biological concepts. In the third phase of the research, an intervention based on concept mapping was implemented and evaluated. Two of the six weekly tutorial classes associated with two first-year biology courses were used for the purposes of the intervention. The intervention differed from the other concept mapping studies reported in the literature in that its implementation was of long duration, viz., a period of 11 weeks. Students who participated in the intervention reported in 'tutorial experience questionnaires' and subsequent interviews that concept mapping helped them to learn the biology content covered during lectures, and to identify links between concepts. A large proportion of participants indicated that they used concept mapping for biology study outside of the intervention tutorial classes, and in some cases in other courses of study. Classroom management strategies appeared to contribute to the positive views about the use of concept mapping during tutorials. Specifically, the tutor modelled the use of concept mapping, but students were also given opportunities to construct their own maps. The role of the tutor in guiding discussions with students and providing feedback was also viewed as being important. Detailed analysis of course assessment tasks suggests that concept mapping enhanced learning for test questions that require understanding of links between concepts. Where tasks require only the recall of facts, concept mapping does not appear to make a statistically significant difference to student performance. The findings from the concept mapping intervention thus suggest that although concept mapping is a strategy that can be used effectively in tertiary biology tutorial classes, it is more worthwhile if the type of deep learning that is encouraged by the use of concept mapping is also the type of learning required to successfully complete assessment tasks. This raises the issue of whether the type of learning faculty specify in course objectives is the type of learning they actually seek to develop in course delivery and associated assessment regimes.

Humic substances (HS) are the humified portions of totally decomposed soil organic matter that are ubiquitous in nature. Although these substances have been studied for more than 200 years, neither their metabolic capabilities nor a specific chemical structure has yet to be determined. HS have been studied as a carbon source in many environments where they are degraded; however, previous studies have shown that some microorganisms are capable of utilizing humic substances as electron acceptors and electron donors in anaerobic respiration. Even though there have been humic-reducing and humic-oxidizing microorganisms isolated and studied in recent years, the mechanism of humics metabolism and its interaction in the natural environment are not well understood. However, it is known that the continuous change in the redox state of HS is important to the cycling of iron, stability of nitrogen and carbon, and the mobility and bioavailability of inorganic and organic environmental pollutants. In this study, microbial communities were examined to evaluate the community dynamics of nitrate-dependent HS-oxidizing populations and to provide a snapshot of the phylogenetic diversity of these microorganisms. Column studies were performed using nitrate as the sole electron acceptor and the following as the electron donors in different columns: reduced humic acids, oxidized humic acids, and acetate as the control. Liquid buffered media was added to a separate column to serve as an additional control. Polymerase chain reactions of the 16S rRNA genes using DNA from the column studies were performed and analyzed by constructing 16S rDNA clone libraries and by performing denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). Clones from the library have been sequenced and analyzed to paint a phylogenetic picture of the microbial community under the various conditions. Results indicate that the majority of the clones were assigned to four well-characterized divisions, the Acidobacteria, the Bacteroidetes, the Firmicutes, and the Proteobacteria. Additional findings suggest that members related to Bacteroidetes are involved in some sort of HS cycling in the environment or may be excellent electron scavengers enabling them to outcompete other microorganisms and that members of Proteobacteria may be the dominant HS-oxidizing microorganisms in natural environments. An additional aspect of this project hypothesizes that specific genes are differentially expressed when HS-oxidizing bacteria are growing on reduced HS as compared to acetate or in the presence of oxidized HS. To test this hypothesis, the global gene expression profile of Acidovorax ebreus strain TPSY was assessed using microarray analysis. This method led to the identification of several genes potentially involved in nitrate-dependent HS oxidization and a proposed model for this respiratory process in strain TPSY. The final section in this project was designed to assess in-service teachers' perceived levels of familiarity with and interest in learning more about selected microbiology concepts and their actual understanding of the selected microbiology concepts. Sixty-two in-service elementary, middle, and high school teachers from several school districts across southern Illinois completed a three-part instrument that included additional open-ended questions to gain more information about the teachers' conceptual understanding. The results of this study suggest that teachers who hold a teaching certification specific for teaching life science have taken more life science courses and scored significantly higher on the familiarity and conceptual knowledge sections of this study. The current research explores what is currently known about humic substances, specifically humics as an electron donor, analyzes the community structure in a humics oxidizing environment, identifies genes that are induced under nitrate-reducing, HS-oxidizing conditions, and evaluates the importance of microbiology to biological scientific literacy in today's society.

Educational research often emphasizes the prevalent gender gap between males and females in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. While many studies have found a gender bias when it comes to specific areas of science, little has been done to analyze the effects of how we teach within each of these subjects. In our study, we took a new angle on gender research by specifically considering whether there is a gender gap in how the models (the specific lesson examples/content used to teach a broader biology topic) used to teach biology affect student interest, attitude, and learning. We first created and distributed a survey to kindergarten through sixth grade students to see whether a gender bias concerning lesson models exists, when that gap is most prevalent, and which models exhibit the bias. Based on the findings of that survey, we then created four sets of parallel lesson plans teaching broad topics using juxtaposing lesson models, one of male interest and one of female interest. We designed instruments to measure whether lesson model or presenter gender impacted student interest, attitude, and learning. Our findings show that students do indeed indicate a preference to learn using certain lesson models, but that the lesson model and presenter gender do not impact student interest, attitude, or learning during an active learning biology presentation.

Denna kunskapsöversikt syftar till att undersöka vad forskning säger om utomhuspedagogik inom ämnet biologi. Vidare undersöks vilka möjliga effekter utomhuspedagogik kan bidra till. Kunskapsöversikten är en litteraturstudie som består av 10 vetenskapliga artiklar. De valda artiklar som ingår i kunskapsöversikten genomgick en kartläggning där specifika aspekter valdes ut och lyfts fram. Dessa delar är grunden för kunskapsöversikten. Resultatet av forskningen som ingår i kunskapsöversikten tyder på att utomhuspedagogiken inom biologi bidrar med att främja elevernas kunskapsinlärning och att befästa kunskaper. Vidare indikerar forskningens resultat att utomhuspedagogiken stärker elevernas relation och attityd till naturen.

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